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"Put them on the Clock"

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Ihadris:
Hi guys,

Ive been re-reading through the rules for Spirit of the Century in anticipation for Dresden. Unfortunatly I never managed to get a group together to play Spirit so I'm appealing to those with experiance of running fate games to help me out with this one.

How do you go about running a 'timed event' in your games? Im feeling that the same need for action is a common theme in Dresden, Harry rarely seems to get much downtime

The section of the rule book that references this stars on page 304. I understand the basics of it- that there be an immediate need for action to be taken by the players for whatever reason. One of the exmaples cited is players battling ontop of a train running out of track. Obviously saying to the players 'You weren't quick enough, the train runs out of track and you all die' isn't the best thing to do but I feel that if there was never any chance of the dire consequences actually happening that it would seem both obvious and fake.

So how do you measure the progress of the impending doom? Actual time? Rounds?

Thanks in advance
Ihadris

Archmage_Cowl:
I personally have preffered the three warnings system(own personal name dont know if it has a real one) Basically ill give the players like a comment like, hey this will happen soon and let them react to that. If what ever they do doesnt change things then i say Hey this is still a big problem over here. Then they get to react again. If what they do still doesnt solve the problem then i say basicly you get one last chance. If they cant have solved the problem by now its usually just one of those things were you say sorry and see if their characters die.
Based on your example i would say hey the train is running out of track. Then maybe next i would say as the train continues to barrel toward certain death. Then finally if they havent gotten away by then i say you see the end of the tracks vanish under the train as it begins to go off. If they havent managed to resolve that situation somehow then well... sorry. It might not kill them all but it certainly could cause one or two of them to be maimed or out of main combat for a session or two.
as for timed events i use an hour glass its very dramatic but can involve lots of shouting. lol ;D

Ihadris:
Thanks Cowl, thats a really solid idea!

I'd love to use an hourglass; I can just imagine the look on their faces now! Bizzarly we have a few at home knocking around from old board-games. I would be concerned that I wouldnt leave them enough time to work out the scene, perhaps after I run a few games and get a feel for it I'll try using one.

Archmage_Cowl:
well i wont lie using timed scenes is a really powerful tool(i feel) it should only be used rarely. Frankly it just gets annoying if every time something happens you have only limited time to think. It keeps pace but the people i play with frown upon it largely so i can only use it at really focal points. but when ever they see me start tapping that hourglass as we are working up to a big scene the look of fear on their faces is just priceless. I can see it going through their heads now "okay hows he gonna screw us over?"  ;D

srl51676:
This is a really great idea and it got me thinking what about using scaled real time to cover longer term impending doom. for example you have 24 hours to find the little girl or she runs out of air this game session last 4 hour if you have not found her by the time we break for the week she dies and you have to deal with the consequences. I would not break it into hard 1hr-6hrs but the last real time hour could get fairly tense.

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